How often do you wish that there were two of you? Two people with the same goals in mind, knocking tasks off your to-do list. One of you to do normal things like cooking, going to work and spending time with your family. The other, for working on your hobby or obsessing over things that get relegated to extracurricular time — after your family is asleep or while you commute to work.

I started writing this blog in 2008 as a way to share what I was writing down somewhere else anyway — in a notebook, an app on my phone, post-it notes here and there. It hasn’t stopped since then but there are a million reasons why I haven’t posted anything new.

Since that the last time I published a new post, it feels like my life has changed 100 times over. My drafts have piled up (128 pending in WordPress, to be specific). I planned to write about my family (+1 baby), turning 25 (+3 years), politics, technology, and of course, some of what I’ve been reading, for old times sake.

As I try to get back into this groove, take a look at my favorite posts from the past years:

Have you noticed that when you ask someone how they’re doing, one of the common responses is “busy”. I’m guilty of that. It’s not always a complaint. Sometimes it’s not that we’re too busy for our friends, but we unintentionally make ourselves appear off limits to people who are trying to connect.

Maybe it’s just me and my friends, but it seems that everyone is always busy. Actually busy. Between work, activities, family or partner commitments, it’s a game in itself to schedule a date. Let me tell you something, it’s possible. Friends like attention. That’s how they stay your friends, I’ve learned. Granted, I might be spoiled because my best friend/husband is also my live-in coworker. Yes, we work in the same home office, we have almost every meal together, we go to the movies together.

Anyway, it’s been a long time since I’ve written something new for this site. So long in fact that I hesitated before remembering what to type into the browser. The slight lapse in memory might simply be from how tired I am today. Everyone says they’re busy, and I don’t know if I’m more or less busy that you, but I am tired. And I’m tired of being too tired to write anything for myself. There aren’t many people reading, but I’m going to tell you anyway that I’m working on a few new posts. Hopefully you will see those soon. Maybe even one that’s interesting.

Are you one of those people who always says they’re busy when friends ask? Stop that. Go outside. Have coffee with your neglected friends and tell them about what you’re working on. It might be another committement, but you’ll likely both appreciate it. It seems that life only gets busier, and one day you might your friend to make space in their schedule for you too.

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When I wrote this in 2014, there was a viral momentum that pushed memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease into the national spotlight. Then, and even now, the United States had a problem that basically needed money to have a chance to be solved. In a time when people are surviving and living through other major diseases, our friends and family members with Alzheimer’s disease — without cures or real treatments — are dying at an increasing rate.

“Americans whisper the word Alzheimer’s because their government whispers the word Alzheimer’s. And although a whisper is better than the silence…it’s still not enough.”

When Seth Rogen gave a speech about his mother-in-law who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in her 50’s I was surprised. It’s the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. (and is emotionally and financially devastating to so many families) – yet it’s treated like another inevitable disease. I hung on to every word because I understood his pain.

Grandma, top, in April 1949.

I remembered sitting outside with my grandma one summer and listening to stories about her life. I think I was 17. I definitely didn’t know then what was to come. I wasn’t aware of what could happen to a person, even if you love them. Even if they’re the most important person in the world to you.

The comedian’s story in front of the U.S. Senate’s Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services was predictably funny, but still powerful. That committee is the one that’ll be looking at the economic effect of Alzheimer’s disease as well as how much money is going into research.

I was immediately grateful that he lent his celebrity to this cause and shared such a personal story. I was grateful that the C-SPAN video blew up online less than 24 hours after it was recorded. Honestly, if he wasn’t trying to make us laugh, I would have been crying all over my keyboard.

All I could think about afterward was that sharing stories is so important to help others understand what’s important to you.

Our Grandma

My grandmother has lived with dementia for several years. She is now a 90 year old woman, with great grandchildren, who can’t recognize her closest family members.

Having dementia means cells are dying in your brain, causing what you would expect: a person to forget. First, small things, and then lots of things all at once, including people they’ve known for decades. Their brain loses the blueprints for activities that you and I find simple, like how to get dressed or eat or which people to trust. Most cases of dementia are caused by Alzheimer’s disease (though there are several others).

An important thing to remember is that Alzheimer’s and dementia are not a normal part of aging, just like cancer is not a normal part of life.

My grandmother had a difficult life. She survived a World War, years of hunger, Stalin and all of the things associated with the Soviet Union. She was forced out of her country and her home as a teenager. At almost 70 years old, she moved to America.

One of my favorite photos of my grandmother is her as a young girl. I love this photo but it’s difficult to imagine her this way. What were her hopes, her goals or her dreams? That’s something I can’t ask anymore.

As one of the youngest grandchildren I feel that I could never have had as much time as everyone else to know her. I’m sure no amount of time would have been long enough anyway. All I know is that she loved us, and doted on my brother and me in all of the ways she knew how — by telling us about her plants, making fresh bread, forcing us to eat her meals, and then making something new when we protested.

This was not a grandmother who’d let you eat pizza or hamburgers. I remember her laughing at all of the American ways we picked up at school. I’m sure we did some strange things in her eyes.

I remember when she learned to read English but couldn’t understand a word. She would read my brother’s t-shirts and ask us what the phrases meant.

She taught me to do crosswords in Russian and I still love them. The little squares remind me of her. Vines on plants and fresh bread remind me of her, even though she’s still here.

Tell Your Story

Sharing stories gets people out of the shadows, and encourages then to ask for help. But the resources they need have to be there or else it’s just talk. There is no way to prevent, cure or to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s. Unlike other major diseases, diagnoses have actually increased 68% over the past decade. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than 5 million people are currently living with the disease. That doesn’t include non Alzheimer’s induced dementia. Nor the number of family members, caretakers, social workers and other invaluable people who spend decades of their lives dealing with the disease.

Seth Rogen mentioned that not so long ago, people who had cancer were ashamed to tell anyone. Though unfortunately cancer is still a leading cause of death, the research for its cure has visibility and financial support.

It’s not easy to share something private, but I’ll gladly do it if it will tell someone that they’re not alone, or it will remind others that we’re still fighting for our loved ones.

Politics, committees and budget meetings like the one Rogen attended happen all the time, but I’m hoping that there will be some breakthroughs given this momentum.

So I ask our Congress, the President and everyone else: What are your memories worth to you?

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Before we started as freshman in high school, my class was sent on a weekend trip outside of New York City. It was then that I got to know my best friend and several other people that would leave an impression on me. One of the things I remember well from the trip was laying in the grass at night and looking up at the dark sky. I had hardly known the location of the stars after spending most of my life in the brightness of the city, but our future science teacher made us look carefully and use our imaginations. Like many other times before, I strained my eyes to find some pattern in a dark sky awash with glowing dots. The stars were beautiful to me, but in contrast to the architecture of New York — the bright windows of office buildings and skyscrapers — dispersed without any pattern.

Many years later, I moved about 30 miles outside of the city to Connecticut. My neighborhood was far from a dark, wooded place, but any place is after New York City. I was able to see a lot more stars than I ever had before. My husband would point out constellations that he learned as a kid.

Did I see Orion? With three stars for the belt, legs and outstretched arms. The big and little dipper. I couldn’t see them after staring up from fields and looking out the window on long drives, using constellation plotting apps, or compasses on my phone pointing north and south.

Recently, we were walking at night together and I looked up at the apparently rare Christmas full moon. It might have washed out the stars around it, but all of a sudden I noticed a line of three stars. Orion’s Belt!

I had that wonderful feeling of learning something new. Someone else pointed out the stars to me a few weeks later, and I nodded. I know what’s up there. I can see the three stars that make the belt, the head and the arms outstretched. I know exactly where they are after staring up so many times.

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New Year’s Eve holds a lot of promises. Whether you’re hoping to complete your resolutions and hoping for big changes, or just going about business as usual, January 1st marks the beginning of something. The start of a new calendar year, new bills, new paychecks, another school year, birthdays to celebrate.

We are hopeful on December 31, but there is no magic in the clock striking 12. We wake up in the morning the same as we were the day before—with our own bodies, our experiences and our thoughts. There’s no harm in seeing January 1 with fresh eyes, but we must be the agents of change in our lives.

The holidays are a busy for me, between family events and eating leftover food, it’s difficult to find a time to write. But writers learn sooner or later that we can improve by simply reading more. If you’ve seen my “Tranquil Tuesday” posts in the past, you won’t be surprised that I found a poem to bring in the new year. “To the new year” by W.S. Merwin embodies that beautiful feeling of hope that reminds us what is possible, despite what happened the day or year before.

Happy New Year!

To the New Year

by W.S. Merwin

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible

What makes you, you?

People tend to compare themselves to others at different stages of their lives. Sometimes these comparisons can help us set goals and find confidence in our identity. You might have seen yourself in a parental figure or a celebrity. But have you ever felt like lion at heart or a graceful fish in the water? Has your soul felt as one with a leaf falling slowly from its tree in autumn or have you found yourself ingrained in the cobblestones of a city?

That’s the spirit of Paean to Place by Lorine Niedecker: We see ourselves in others, like family, and also in our surroundings. I read Niedecker’s work for the first time as a college freshman, and sometime during that class I copied some of my favorite lines into a notebook. Unfortunately after almost a decade after “discovering” this writer, I’ve never seen anyone share her work. You can read the entire poem here.

—————

Fish

fowl

flood

Water lily mud

My life

in the leaves and on water

My mother and I

born

in swale and swamp and sworn

to water

My father

thru marsh fog

sculled down

from high ground

saw her face

—————

Looking back to the past for help

“Paean to Place” centers around a woman who we learn several things about almost immediately. She was from an area constantly flooded by water. She grew up poor. Her parents are dead.

It is written in the past tense so I always read it as the narrator looking back at her life. She is not only remembering things, but recounting her story in order to accept who she is. I’m pretty sure of this as I get to the last stanza. Read it on your own and let me know if you agree.

So she’s a product of her surroundings? Yes, but more than that. She finds that herself and her parents can be described in reference to the water or the creatures living around it. Things that help her construct an identity and figure out what’s important.

Up in the sky and in the water, she was surrounded by birds that she knew by their official names: Plovers, sora rails, canvasbacks, woodcocks. She remembered all of their sounds (even wishing in one line, that her mother could hear them). At one point the girl considers herself a “solitary plover”. Like the marsh birds, she had a unique song and one outfit. She wore it as long as the birds kept their feathers. (Apparently seven years). But as much as the girl wants to be like them, ultimately it’s the wings that really set them apart. Her feathered neighbors had more freedom to leave the marsh in which they resided. This is pretty sad, given that within the first few stanzas she reveals her parents dreams: “that their daughter/ might go high/ on land/ to learn.

Niedecker’s narrator does not have feathers but “a pencil/for a wing-bone.” Words are what carry her out of her difficult world. This is the line that really resonated with me. (Please leave your sarcastic gasps for the end of the show. I’m sure that other writers and lovers of words will feel the same.)

—————

You with sea water running

in your veins sit down in water

Expect the long-stemmed blue

speedwell to renew

itself

—————

It seems that the girl, now a woman, left her home in an effort to escape the water and the flooding. She’s different now. But when she returns to visit her parents’ graves, the narrator finds herself a part of it all again.

Though she tried to be a bird and fly away, it’s not the wings that were missing. Her identity was shaped like the water lillies, irises and speedwells that spread around her. Ordinary flowers grew toward light and pleasant conditions, but these survived flooding and grow on top of graves. She had just grown roots in one place for so long, but that was okay.

The water haunted her but it also renewed her, and gave her life.

————–

O my floating life

Do not save love

for things

Throw things

to the flood

————–

It’s not easy to figure out what defines us. For me, like in Niedecker’s poem, there’s always been a small battle going on to accept things that have shaped me for better or worse. Those things can feed us and help us grow instead of keeping us down.

So what would you say has shaped you? Is it something that holds you back or helps you forward?

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It was pretty alarming to read that ISIS destroyed the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, Syria, and killed an archaeologist who had looked after it for 40 years. To be honest, I had never heard of the ancient city of Palmyra. I didn’t know that the Temple of Bel was almost 2000 years old and dedicated to a Mesopotamian god. It withstood the Roman empire, conversions to Christianity and later to Islam.

But now that I do… it’s genuinely upsetting. This area was along the Silk Road and its history seems to be an example of different cultures vying for power and somehow living together as well. Most cultures don’t exist in a vacuum. Things definitely have to change. If you live in the United States particularly, our cities are a testament to changing times, but we need cities like Palmyra to continue existing.

“You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they’ll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it’s as if they never existed.”

The movie was about a group of art experts who were enlisted by the U.S. army to find and preserve art that Hitler was destroying as he blasted through Europe. It wasn’t the best movie, but I really loved this speech. Art represents culture. Sometimes it’s both history and progress. Without it, we would not be the same world despite all of our wonderful scientific and technological achievements.

ISIS is not unique in what they did. There’s a reason that dictators burn books. It’s to erase ideas and attempt to rewrite the past. Aren’t we better as people if we learn from the past rather than destroy it? Aren’t we better people if we CHOOSE to do something and learn it ourselves, instead of being forced into it?

Why do people prefer to study classics and history instead of technology? There is something in human nature that’s guided towards it. I think we need both progress and history, art and technology. We need both for the human race to survive.

I don’t know what the solution is to a problem as big as ISIS (and other groups who want to destroy the world). Obviously I have more questions than answers, but this is a reminder that there are people in this world who risk their lives to protect even a seemingly small part of our humanity.

Two young journalists and a woman they were interviewing were shot on live television on August 26, 2015. I started writing this in anger on a Wednesday night, the same day it happened, and decided to wait before publishing. My gut reaction was strong. I thought about this tragic story obsessively for a few days because of the way it was first broadcast in public, and then done again and again online.

If you haven’t read about it by now, a guy came shot three people during a live morning interview. Initially he got away and had time to post a his own, first-person video of the crime. To top that off, several media outlets shared the video that the murderer recorded and posted online.

By Thursday morning, some newspapers and TV stations were using stills (if not whole clips) from the incriminating video. With one article after another, whether it was Reuters or some other reliable source, I found myself watching an “edited” version of the shooting video. I had waited to calm down but a week later, it still makes no sense.

We will never stop trying figure out “what happened?” Why did he do it? Maybe that’s why the Daily News thought it was a good idea to publish a front page photo of Alison Parker being shot from the killer’s perspective. Many other newspapers did the same.

We read about murders and horrible crimes every single day. We look at statistics and try to grasp at what they represent, but somehow even the most violent images can’t force us as a country to react.

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence wrote recently about how effective even relatively small changes to gun laws can make a huge difference in the number of people killed every year. One example they used was the state of Missouri and its repeal of a 80-year old law that required a background check and license to buy handguns from any type of seller.

“Johns Hopkins researchers determined that repeal of Missouri’s background check requirement was linked to a 14% increase in Missouri’s murder rate through 2012 and a 25% percent increase in firearm homicide rates. These researchers estimated that in tragic human terms, the law’s repeal translated into an additional 49 to 68 murders every year.”

That number is not just a number. Each one is a person whose life was taken by a gun. Not by a mentally ill person or a “disgruntled employee,” but by a gun that was available to them.

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A few months after last year’s tax day, my mom told me that she got a call from an abrasive IRS agent saying that my dad owed money on his taxes. This man called their home phone and demanded to speak to my father. He told her that they had not paid the government and that there would be officers at her door soon. What did my mom do? She hung up on him!

Somehow she knew that it was a tax scam.

A Fake IRS Tale

I’d heard this story before… Not too long before that my mother-in-law told me about a friend who received a similar call. The difference was that this person was (understandably) frightened by the fake IRS agent’s threats. She didn’t want her home taken away or to be arrested. So when the person on the phone offered a “settlement,” it seemed in her best interest to just pay it off immediately.

Fortunately, they called an accountant who set them straight.

And before that… The IRS puts out a list of the worst scams for the year. I can’t pin point when this particular one started, but this type of money-making scheme is quite popular. It’s so intrusive that it catches people off guard. They might have some reason to worry about their finances, their tax forms or their business. I can think of a ton of money-stealing situations off the top of my head that I have either read about or heard about from others. Some people had to deal with years of fighting to regain their stolen identity, while others transferred money that they will never get back. What’s important is that you know what your moves are: before, during and afterward.

Why do scams work?

So you get a call from someone who tells you threatens you as an official (police, FBI, IRS, etc) or reads your personal information back to you. They threaten you with your worst fears — debt, jail time, deportation. These people are good.

“But I’m smarter than that,” you might say. I believe you, I do, but these people SOUND pretty legit for several reasons:

They say they’re from the IRS

They give a name & IRS badge/ID

They have an office number you can actually call back

Your caller ID says “IRS office” or something similar

You get a “follow-up” call from a different agent, department or agency (ex, a police officer)

You get an email that supports the call

It sounds like they’re calling from an office (background noise)

They state your full name, social security number or other personal information

Just in case you missed it: THIS call is not from the IRS! Nor, will it ever be. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service, which is responsible for collecting taxes, will not call, text, or email you if there is a problem with your taxes. IRS agents will not knock on your door to chat, or do anything without letting you know by mail. Don’t take my word for it. This is straight from the IRS website:

The IRS will always send taxpayers a written notification of any tax due via the U.S. mail. The IRS never asks for credit card, debit card or prepaid card information over the telephone.

Remember your rights

Before you do anything, remember that there is no harm in verifying an official’s identity. Given the prevalence of this kind of tax scam, I would even call the IRS to check out a letter you received in the mail. I’d imagine that real officers or agents will recognize that you are trying to be safe. So do just that.

Do not share any personal information or meet anyone unless it is at a police station or a real IRS office. Call a police station or other relevant office to confirm whether or not there is a problem. Do not click on any email links or follow messages without verification. It’s as simple as that.

After receiving this type of call, you can do the following things:

Report it to the IRS: http://www.irs.gov/uac/Report-Phishing

Report identity theft if they use your SSN: http://oig.ssa.gov/report-fraud-waste-or-abuse/what-cant-oig-investigate/identity-theft

Call your local police department if someone comes to your house, or if money is stolen

Though it might seem obvious to you, many people do get caught up in tax scams every single year, especially the elderly and those who don’t understand English well. In fact, these scumbags will target those people specifically. Let your friends, parents or grandparents know what to look out for and what their rights are.

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This is an update of the post originally published on October 31, 2013.

What makes the good scary story? I always thought that ghost tales told around a fire or in a dark room pretty much covered the genre. That it would be the suspense and mind-boggling monsters that gave people nightmares.

‘The Blacksmith’ by Susan Shultz is about love, heartbreak, blood, and murder in graveyards. Spoiler: It was a great read, even for a grown up, scaredy cat like me.

Tales from the Graveyard

It wasn’t until I read “The Blacksmith“, that I thought about a different type of “scary story.” This one is more of a Dark or Gothic Romance. It relies on legitimate fears of loss and the flaws in human nature to make you feel uncomfortable. Don’t misunderstand — if you like blood, ghosts and sociopaths, “The Blacksmith” has that for you.

Honestly, I have never read a ‘horror’ story willingly. I only read this book because Susan is my friend and an excellent writer. If you’re willing to read something different (and quite good), I promise you’ll survive!

Suspense and Heartbreak in Suburbia

The main character, Ainsley is a librarian in a “sleepy New England town” by day and a friend to the dead in her backyard at night. Her favorite companion is the Blacksmith, despite his attempts to pull her away from her one real friend: Sam. Ainsley tells us that Blacksmith is a strong presence and reminds her that she belongs in the graveyard with him.

She acknowledges who she appears to be early on: a monster. Susan Shultz has a way of making something terrible sound so eloquent through a lonely woman’s eyes.

“My heart is dead. It does not beat. It died some time ago. It is dead, but it feels hunger, like a zombie. It lurches on, seeking heat, blood. Sometimes, it feels pain. The pain in my heart is the spot where a healed-over broken bone aches when it rains.”

In about 50 e-pages, the story reveals a character who feels love and heartache the way a person might describe feeling a ghost limb. She ignores it and tries to suppresses it with a deranged hobby — murdering men and eating their hearts.

What makes Ainsley such a great character are her flaws, but the question is whether it’s the blood on her hands or her loneliness that destroys her. With a character so extreme and seemingly disturbed, I could almost understand the reasons for her actions than another who is more introspective or talkative. What Ainsley does is almost an animal instinct due to her pain and a visceral reaction to something she is missing in life.

Susan is also able to write in other stories within Ainsley’s — those of the people in her graveyard. We learn about those who once inhabited her isolated house and who are now a part of her life.

In an interview with a local newspaper editor, Susan explains that the duality we see in Ainsley (between her terrifying deeds and her loving nature) are inspired from her own life. It’s worthwhile to read the whole story by David DesRoches here.

“Obviously I’m not a murderer, but there’s the one version of myself during the day that fits in, then there’s the one who is me that doesn’t really fit in.”

“It’s between what we struggle with and what we share with the outside world and who we really are,” [Susan] said.

The e-book is available here and won’t take you more than an hour or so to read. The whole story is written well, but the ending will leave you wondering about Ainsley’s true nature, if not the motivations of all people.If you get a chance to read it, let me know what you think.Follow Susan Shultz‘s author page on Facebook for updates. Order the second book from ‘Tales from the Graveyard‘, and third book ‘Dirt‘ on Amazon.

If you’re looking for something classic and that will only disturb you slightly try “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, or pick up Susan’s inspiration — “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson.